Awhile ago, I wrote a post titled Why Speak? (go check out the post if you haven’t seen it). In my post, I gave some reasons why you should think about public speaking, if you’ve never done it.

Ned Potter (read his blog – awesome content!) commented, and asked “what about reasons NOT to speak?” So – here are some of those reasons!

Some Reasons to NOT Speak:

Maybe you are terrified of standing in front of people (ok – sometimes a little practice will get you over this one. I speak from experience here!).

You don’t have any ideas that you want to share. You might be an amazing librarian, but you just don’t think in terms of sticking what you do at work into a 30 minute – 1 hour presentation, complete with bullet points and an attention-grabbing call to action at the end. That’s ok!

You don’t care, or just aren’t that invested/passionate about the topic. That’s a good reason to not speak about it! Maybe also a reason to re-think your job?

One from Ned – “having too much else [to do] – feeling able to say ‘no’ to what is a good opportunity, because it’s just not the right time, is really important (and underrated).” I’d agree. For example, I’ve said no to presentations around the time my kids were born, and had to cut back on a lot when there was a death in the family. Sometimes life, family, rest, and self-care is more important than doing other things. Or maybe you simply have too many things on your plate – you’re already very busy. So why add on one more thing, even if it’s a great opportunity?

One more from Ned: “I was also thinking about letting other voices be heard – as a white male I know I’m over-represented at Library conferences (among speakers) as it is. So I like to enquire, when I’m asked to speak, about who else is speaking. If the only other keynotes are also white males, I’d politely suggest they address this issue by getting someone other than me…” I think that’s a great idea, and definitely something to consider. I’d personally lean more on the conference organizers here. If a potential speaker is the one doing the asking … maybe you should re-think that lineup?

Couple porn
So again – reasons to speak, reasons to NOT speak. The same things could be said for reasons to write/not write. Not everyone should write a book/start a blog/do a weekly podcast.

But I’ll guess you DO have something (or a couple of somethings) that you are passionate about (ask Ned or me about drums sometime!). Focus on those things, and see where it takes you!

After attending a recent conference, I realized something – not everyone practices their presentations beforehand!

There are definitely some benefits to practicing giving your presentation, especially if you are a new speaker and are going out in front of people for the first time.

Here are some things you might want to practice and/or finesse before the actual presentation:

Hook up a laptop to a projector and actually go through your slides. Figure out the simple stuff – things like how to open up the presentation, how to advance the slides, etc. I know – this seems pretty basic. But I’ve seen really smart people sorta freeze when they suddenly have to stand in front of a lot of people and fumble around with files and folders, or an unfamiliar laptop. Sometimes even just advancing slides can be weird if you’ve never really done it before. So practicing those simple things beforehand is a good thing to do.

Presenter Notes. If you use presenter notes, know where those are, how to scroll through them if you have a lot of notes, etc. Again, pretty basic stuff … until you are standing in front of 100 people, can’t see that last point you wanted to make, and your mind suddenly goes blank about how to scroll down to that last point. Yikers!

Time your talk. Actually practice your presentation out loud. Make sure you don’t go over time. Especially if you are on a panel, or in a session with multiple speakers. Also work on pacing the other way – if you have 45 minutes for your talk, you don’t want to finish in 20 minutes. I set an alarm on my iPhone that goes off about 10 minutes before the end of my time. That way, I know I need to wrap up, and give a couple of minutes for questions at the end of my talk.

Practice that tech stuff. Showing a video? Make sure you know how to play it, how the audio will work, etc. Showing off a website or a database? Know how to bounce out of your presentation to show the site, and then be able to bounce back into your presentation to continue.

Check the tech before you start. Test the microphone. If it has an on/off switch, test it out. Is there a clicker to advance slides? Test it out.

Ever had a problem when you gave a presentation? What was it? I’d love to know!

I do a lot of public speaking – at library conferences and for my library in our community. I like it and think it’s sorta fun.

If you don’t like public speaking, or if you have just never really done it – why learn to speak in public?

Here are some reasons for public speaking:

Learning a new skill. Public speaking is definitely a skill, and as such it can be learned. And improved upon.

Resume builder. Employers like people who can confidently deliver a presentation.

Organizing thoughts. The process of creating a presentation – organizing thoughts, arranging them in a logical way, sharing next steps, etc – is a great way to organize thoughts and ideas.

Confidence builder. Apparently a LOT of people get wigged out by the idea of standing in front of people and talking. So what’s the best way to face those fears and build up that confidence? Yep – taking the leap and sharing thoughts in front of a group of people.

Public Speaking translates well to other areas. If you can organize and give a public presentation, you also have the skillset to lead training sessions and lead meetings.

Learn how before you need to do it. If you move up in your organization or in your career, most likely you will eventually have to deliver some type of presentation – in front of a board or government officials (city council, state government, etc), or even share something in the news on a local tv station. It’s a good thing to learn how to do BEFORE you need to actually do it.

Sharing is good! My favorite reason – I’ll bet you or your library has done something cool, or inspiring, or innovative, or just different. Other librarians want to know about it! A great way to share what you did is to give a presentation at a regional, state, or national conference.

That’s what I think, anyway. What should I add here? Let me know! Also – here are a couple of other articles on reasons to improve public speaking:

The apps talk isn’t something I necessarily believe in – this was part of a fun Tuesday evening program. I argued for apps, and Marshall Breeding argued (successfully) for websites. It involved costumes. You had to be there 🙂